Sixth of the Sixth

Well, looks like I managed to get myself tagged in yet another meme, this time by Kae over at Shades of Kae.

The gist of it is you take your sixth screenshot folder and post the sixth screenshot. Well, I only have one folder, so I went six columns over and six rows down to dig up this beauty for you.

Something tells me it was either really late, or I had downed a few rum and somethings. Possibly both. I think the picture speaks for itself.

Generally that’s when random poetry happens.

It really is interesting mapping all this out, you can see the tree in all it’s branchy glory at Martha.net. It’s like the 6 degrees of blogger seperation.

Only level 67, and Ready for the LFR

Over the weekend I wrote a post about gearing my Prot Pally. Inspired by Big Bear Butt (who is now trying an ironman challenge that sounds fun) I decided to see just how well I could gear a character upon hitting level 85.

My own rules, everything had to be either BoE’s I was able to afford, quest items available within an hour or two of hitting 85, or items purchasable with Justice points and/or Honor points. Justice and Honor rewards limited to 4K of each. (I actually went 75 honor over, but that’s one BG at level 85)

I managed to put together a set of gear that takes me all the way to being able to run the LFR the same day I hit 85.

Will I be ready to tank it? Hell no, I don’t know the fights, I have never raid tanked (other than emergency pet tanking that sometimes saved a 1% wipe or two).

The point is, I managed to get to that point without cheezing the system with level 377 PvP gear. In fact, the only PvP gear on my shopping list is a ILevel 390 helm bought for Honor, selected mostly because of the lack of PvE options that I can grab right away.

Ready for raiding and not even to Northrend yet.

If I can do it, anyone can.

Gearing up a Fresh 85 Pally

A while back a certain fellow blogger with a Big Bear Butt posted about how quickly he managed to gear up a new character upon hitting level 85. Inspired by his post, and curious whether I could do as well as he did, I decided to try it out.

First thing on my agenda was to do some research. I can’t buy anything if I don’t know what I’m shopping for. In this case, I am leveling a Protection Palladin, so I spent a few hours on Maintankadin, reading up on the available gear (as well as a ton of other things).

I put together a list of items I could get from quests, reputation vendors (assuming rep of honored or less, as I could get that questing thru their zone), Bind on Equip items, and a few Justice Point and Honor Point purchases.

On a side note, if you enjoy PvP, yet plan to gear for PvE at the level cap, you can be sitting on quite a few JP and HP when you get to 85. I picked up 3000 honor over the course of perhaps 14 Alterac Valleys last weekend alone.

Anyhow, this is my list items that are either already in the bank, or will be available within hours of hitting 85. Some things are still undecided, as I don’t know how many Justice Points and/or Honor Points I’ll have when I ding.

Helm:

• Vicious Pyrium Helm (BoE PvP gear, better than nothing while I gather Valor Points) OR
• Ruthless Gladiators Scaled Helm (2200 Honor) (if I have the Honor)

Neck:

• Fireheart Necklace (First vendor in Firelands, an hours worth of dailies)

Shoulder:

• Pauldrons of Edward the Odd (BoE epic, scored off the AH)

Back:

• Mantle of Patience (Quest reward, The Vow)

Chest:

• Vicious Pyrium Breastplate (BoE PvP gear, better than nothing while I gather Valor Points) OR
• Immolation Chestguard (2200 Justice Points) (if I have the points)

Wrist:

• Bracers of Unrelenting Excellence (BoE Valor bracers, farmed by my Shaman)

Hands:

• Eternal Elementium Handguards (BoE crafted by Blacksmith)

Waist:

• Hardened Elementium Girdle  (BoE crafted by Blacksmith)

Legs:

• Stone-Wrapped Greaves (Earthen Ring, Honored) OR
• Immolation Leggards (2200 Justice Points) (if I have the points)

Feet:

• Bladeshatter Treads (BoE Valor boots, farmed by my Shaman)

Rings:

• Theck’s Emberseal (Scored off the AH)
• Blauvet’s Family Crest (Scored off the AH)

Relic:

• Notched Jawbone (BoE Inscription)

Trinkets:

• Za’Broks Lucky Tooth (Twilight Highlands Quest Reward)
• Pit Fighter (If I can get a group to help)
• Impetuous Query (BoE dungeon drop, waiting to see one in the AH)

Shield:

• Elementium Earthguard (BoE Blacksmithing)

Weapon:

• Unbreakable Guardian (BoE Blacksmithing)

Now, considering my goal is simply to be as geared as possible right out of the gate, I think this is a pretty good gearset I have here. Depending on which Helm, Chest, Legs, and Trinkets I end up with I will be looking at an Average Item Level of between 362 and 368. I won’t know the actual stats until I see how the enchanting, reforging, and gemming goes.

Seeing as how the requirements for entering Cataclysm heroics is 329 for early ones, 346 for the Trollroics, and 353 for the new 4.3 heroics, I should be able to grab some friends and go run these shortly after hitting 85. (I’ll be sure to advertise on Twitter… “Prot Pally with that new tank smell LF lambs that want led to the slaughter, DM me if you want a repair bill”)

Dragon Soul, even it’s LFR version will of course be out of reach until I have done some additional gearing up, but that’s the way it should be. (It requires 373 in case you were wondering).

Anyhow, thanks for the idea BBB. All I need to do now is finish leveling.

The best laid plans

I went into the weekend with a plan.

Perhaps not the best plan, but it was a plan.

Simply put, I was looking at a way to fill four gear slots on my Pally once I made it to 85. I sat and looked at what it would take to fill in some slots for which I had yet to find BoE’s or quest rewards that would fit nicely.

In this case, I would be able to buy for Justice Points a tanking trinket, T12 legs, and a ring, as well as a helm for Honor Points.

The plan involved farming enough Honor during AV weekend to have 4000 Justice points in the bank (5100 Honor before conversion), followed by having 3850 Honor banked towards the helm and a few more Justice Points towards the third Justice Point purchase.

Farm 8950 Honor in a weekend? Probably not going to happen, but I figured I’d give it a shot. 

Worst case, I would be able to purchase a few pieces. Hell, I might even earn a level or two running all those Alterac Valleys.

Boy was I wrong, about both things.

I started this weekend having just dinged level 51 with about 300 Honor in the bank.

I ran Alterac Valley 21 times, with a 14-7 win/loss ratio.

Generally speaking I would run forth, assist in capping one of the towers, guard it until it burned, and then head to the boss in time for the pull.

I ended the weekend with just under 3000 Honor, not nearly the amount I wanted to farm up. On the other hand I am currently sitting one bubble shy of level 61.

I was leveling up on average every other AV. It was actually kind of crazy fast, including one where the queue popped almost instantly and I managed to go from 54 to 55 in 21 minutes.

Now I am faced with a decision.

I could keep right on running AV until I farm up the Honor I am after, quite likely leveling to somewhere in the mid 70′s running another 40-50 battlegrounds. I could stop and quest my way thru Outlands and Northrend yet again I suppose. Or I could simply go and tank my way up in the LFD.

One gets me practice tanking.

One gets me quest rewards and gold.

One gets me currency I can actually use for pretty damn good gear at 85.

Something tells me I’ll be running a few more AV’s. At least until I fill up my bank accounts.

For the altoholics

So, if you are anything like me you have a bank full of heirlooms. You might not fully equip every character you create, but you just can’t see leveling without any help.

You want to roll an alt over on your cousins boyfriends sisters realm, but keep putting it off because you just can’t bear to level without the help.

Perhaps you even scream and rant at blizzard for not allowing you to mail them cross server. (So do I, it would make life so much easier).

Funny thing is, if you decided to you could deck out an alt in nearly full heirlooms just playing this weekend.

Do I have your attention?

Good.

Step One:

Roll a death knight on the server you want your new character on. Same faction is more convenient, but not really required. In fact, it might be better to roll one on the side that does better at PvP.

Step Two:

Burn your way thru the DK starter area in an hour or two, come out as a blue geared level 58 with a mount and bags.

Step Three:

Queue up for Alterac Valley (especially this weekend, as it’s AV weekend). Run AV for the Honor Points required to buy whatever your class appropriate heirlooms are, switching some Honor to Justice Points for the Chest and Trinkets.

Step Four:

Mail the heirlooms to your shiny new level one alt, and enjoy having a whole new server to play on.

I see myself becoming “That Guy”

For many years I have been playing World of Warcraft. I have no idea how many times I have entered an instance as part of a group. Lets just say if I could count it would be a 4 digit number, at least.

Normals, Heroics, Raids, even Battlegrounds, all group activities that I enjoy.

All this time I had the impression that many tanks out in the wide wide world of Pugs were simply elitist asscandles.

I’ve seen tanks stand and watch people die. Even seen one that danced with the mob that was killing the group.

I’ve seen tanks viciously chew out the healer, or more often one of the Dps for something I didn’t see happening.

I’ve seen tanks drop group without a word, generally after pulling a new pack of mobs over to wipe the group.

I always thought that these folks were asshats who only queued up for a dungeon to make other peoples lives miserable.

I was wrong.

I have pugged my way from 15 to 51 on my little Pally tank now, and I have seen myself doing some of the same damn things. The reality is that the tank is there for pretty much the same reasons you are. Be it experience while leveling, or points and gear at the cap.

They don’t, well at least I don’t, zone in expecting to be an asshole. Some times I end up feeling like one though.

My personal pet peeve is Dps that decide they want to start pulling for me. It irritates me so damn much that two of my three party chat macros are written with it in mind. Here, I’ll run thru them.

Macro 1: Hiyas folks, I’m Desmona and I’ll be your conductor for this ride on the crazy train. Let me know when you’re ready and we’ll get this party started.

That one, obviously, is my way of saying hello while we grab quests and buff up. Sometimes chat ensues, sometimes not. Either way, I’m just saying hello and trying to get a chuckle perhaps. 

Macro 2: Thanks for the assist <name>, but kindly let me handle the pulling.

This one gets used about once every other instance on average. If someone is intentionally pulling, It simply asks them to stop. 90% of the time thats all it takes.

Macro 3: <name> I asked you nicely to let me do my job. If you pull again, you’ll find yourself kicked, or the group in the market for a new tank.

This is the part where I turn into an asshat, at least in my book.

No, I have never pulled a bunch baddies over and left them to chew on my group. I have left, but never in the middle of a pull.

If I have a problem with heals it’s usually dealt with in whispers, asking if I am pulling too much, or moving to fast. Most of the time the healers are, if anything, wanting me to move faster to challenge their skills.

I can see now why there are so few tanks that are willing to Pug, and I see why many of the ones I have run with over the years have come across as pretentious jerks. They aren’t, no more than I am.

They just want to have a nice smooth run like everyone else.

Most people zone into an instance expecting the tank to be the leader of the group. Right or wrong, that’s the impression most people have.

If you are going to expect them to be a leader, then let them lead.

I know I am a lot more aware of that now when I play my other characters.

Prestige

Last night there was gaming going on in my house. In this particular case, my son was playing Modern Warfare 2 with some friends. He had leveled his character all the way to the cap of 70 and was discussing with the buddies whether he should “prestige” or not.

Essentially, take your max level character and reset him to level one, while maintaining some aspects of the original.

I started thinking. What would I do if there was a service like that in WoW?

What if I could take one of my max level characters, pay a fee, and be level one again?

How would I set something like that up if I was a game designer?

Here is what I think would be a really awesome solution to several of the community’s long term gripes.

First you go to the paid services area of your account, select a character for “Rebooting” and pay your fee. Just like a character transfer, race change, or any other premium service.

You log in, go to that character, and similar to when you do a race change the character creation screen opens. Here’s the thing, it opens all the way.

• You can choose any race and/or class just like creating a new level one character.
• Your old character is deleted as part of this process.
• All professions are unlearned.
• All quest progress is wiped, Loremaster title stays if earned.
• All reputations will stay, or convert if changing factions.
• All titles stay.
• Your achievement history goes with you.
• All pets stay with you.
• All mounts stay with you, buy are grayed out until you have the skill to ride them.
• All bank and bag slots you have purchased go with you.
• All items in your inventory stay with you as well.

What this would do is allow for players with extensive time invested in a character they no longer desire to play to carry things with them, particularly things that may no longer be attainable.  You would essentially be a new character, in starter gear, standing in the newb zone. Any gear you might have been wearing is now in your bags.

You are still the old character, only rebooted.

For instance, If I were able to do this, I would take the Hunter I haven’t really played except as a gatherer since TBC and convert her into a Pally. I would pay the $25 or so fee, just to keep my reps, mounts, and soulbound items. Particularly my Tabard of the Argent Dawn and to have Midnight as my mount.

I would do it even though it would mean abandoning my now level 49 Pally in favor of the new one. Even though I would have to level all over again.

What do you think?

Would you pay for a reboot?